AVATAR Experiment
Organ-on-chip experiment flying crew bone marrow cells in deep space for first time.
Last refreshed: 2 April 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
What can bone marrow cells reveal about deep-space radiation?
Timeline for AVATAR Experiment
Mentioned in: Crew's Own Cells Fly to the Moon as Living Experiments
Artemis II Moon MissionWhat is the AVATAR experiment on Artemis II?
Why use personalised cells rather than standard cell lines?
Who developed the AVATAR technology?
Background
AVATAR flies microfluidic organ-on-chip devices containing cells grown from each Artemis II crew member's own bone marrow, making it the first personalised tissue analogue experiment conducted in deep space.
AVATAR — A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response — is a collaboration between BARDA, NIH/NCATS, Space Tango, Emulate Inc., and the Wyss Institute. The chips mimic human organ tissue in a microfluidic environment, allowing researchers to observe how each individual's cells respond to the radiation doses encountered beyond the Earth's magnetosphere.
Results will provide the first personalised deep-space biomedical dataset, informing radiation medicine protocols for future long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars. The same organ-chip methodology has dual-use applications in terrestrial pharmaceutical testing and in BARDA's radiological countermeasure development programme.